It’s been quite some time since I commented on a broadcast/traditional ad campaign, since everyone is so used to learning about brands online these days. Plus, there’s so much emphasis on digital marketing vs. traditional marketing these days. In fact, our last review of a brand’s advertising was probably this one about LLBean.

If I take the time to write a post about an ad campaign, it’s because I really like it or I really dislike it, from a marketing standpoint.

Note when I use the term “TV ad” in this blog post, I’m using it broadly. It could mean a network TV ad or an ad that runs on cable TV or streaming channels.

How A TV Ad Campaign Can Impact A Company’s Brand

There’s no way a company/brand as large as Liberty Mutual hasn’t had their own internal marketing people, and their marketing agency, slicing and dicing the results, as far as their recent TV ads go — so they wouldn’t be running such campaigns if they weren’t effective. But, as someone with a 35+-year-marketing career who has been the keeper of small-to-large organizations’ brands, I just don’t get or even like the recent campaigns. They honestly make me queasy for these negative-impact-on-their-brand reasons:

• It does not seem a good branding practice to have actors, and now a small animated creature, saying the name of your organization/brand wrong. For months now, I haven’t liked the whole “liberty, biberty” thing, but again, it’s likely working for Liberty Mutual as far as driving website traffic, inquiries, and actual engagement for services, or why would they have expanded on it vs. eliminated the use of the “liberty, biberty” phrase by actors and creatures?
• It’s unclear what the new creature is and “it” just feels annoying, and it actually is annoying the people it interacts with in the TV ads.
• Do you want your brand associated with lack of intelligence or lack of effort — I mean, the people played by the male actor, recent female actress, and now the creature, who either can’t make or take the time to get the name of the organization right? Or, just aren’t smart enough to do that?

Insurance companies for years and years have had various actors play the part of various pseudo-spokespeople for their brand, sometimes, with obvious idiosyncrasies, habits, and phrases. And, sometimes, these ads they make me giggle, causing memorability. But, Liberty’s ads don’t have me giggling. Think of Jamie and Flo for Progressive, or Jake from State Farm. Instead, Liberty’s ads really make the brand seem like a silly and not creditable one because of making fun of their own name. I’d put my energy into LiMu Emu if I were Liberty Mutual vs. the new non-identifiable, annoying creature. Maybe it’s just me, so I welcome hearing what other brand and marketing experts have to say about it.